An M. A. P., or MAP as it’s called, stands for Multiple Animator Project. It’s a big
animation made up of lots of tiny parts animated by different people. If you haven’t seen
one before, all of these animators got together to make one just for you and it’s really
fricking great. It’s called Fly Away. It’s linked in the description. Watch it and visit
the people’s channels whose animations are your favorite.
Yeah. Wow. I was so impressed with what we made. Not only did the animators who I ranked
as having high skills make cleary amazing stuff, but the animators I chose because they
had a lot of potential made artwork above the skill level I ranked them at. Basically,
the best thing they’ve ever animated so far is in the Fly Away MAP. I wasn’t expecting
that.
Fly Away is a music video MAP. A popular music video MAP you might have already seen is the
JohnTron Firework cover. While most MAPs are music videos, there are other types of collaborations
people can make. The Mama Luigi Project reanimated the entire episode of Super Mario World, each
of the 227 animators making a few seconds for it. Doors is a string of animations where
the only requirement is each animator must have a stick man must enter door one and exit
door two. The MAP host then takes all of the finished animations, organizes them, and adds
music.
There’s a lot of potential to make unique types of MAPs. The one thing all types have
in common is each participating animator only makes a small section. This is really great
for the animator because they can put lots of hours into making a high quality short,
yet the end product is going to be several minutes long and get a lot more attention
than seven seconds would on its own.
Because MAPs have many different styles of animation strung together, they’re great
for talent scouting. Almost every time I watch a MAP I find a new amazing animator I haven’t
seen before. The best part is when you go to their channel and can see more videos that
tell the stories of their characters, like Daria’s vampires, Gothfrog’s people, and
WarriorRainyDay’s animals, just to name a few. Almost half of the clips in Fly Away
have characters with existing backstory.
What you see in a MAP depends greatly on the rules in place. For Fly Away, there was no
theme and all characters were allowed, whether or not they are original or part of a franchise.
The result is a mix of outside characters and characters owned by the artist, like Jaystar
using How to Train Your Dragon, versus Zileris and Marina who drew their personal characters.
Most MAPs have rules about what you can do. The organizer might only allow original characters,
only allow fandom characters, or might be specific to one thing, like Warrior Cats.
There may be a theme you have to follow. You might only get 24 hours to draw. You might
only be allowed to use certain colors. Some MAP hosts even script part or all of the animation,
and each participant has to animate what the script says. The more rules, the more cohesive
and sensible the resulting video, but the less likely people are to participate.
Generally it is a good idea to limit the scope to a specific fandom, or to a specific theme
to make the project feel more composed. I was worried Fly Away would be so random it
would be hard to watch, but it turned out great. There are some nice coincidences. Purple
at the end of Jendra’s part, purple at the beginning of ZoroArts right after that makes
for a nice transition. Dilaughosaurus and Tykit’s parts just happen to be next to
each other with a nighttime stars and moon setting.
Something unique about the Fly Away MAP is it has different types of animation besides
2D. 2D is very popular in these types of projects, so I immediately jumped on the chance for
3D animation and for stop motion. Right now you’re seeing the process BigBoneMolasses
did to make his part.
There is a whole community of people who make and host MAPs, and the community has its own
famous artists and all that. After watching all this, you may be wondering how to join
an animation collaboration. The first step is to find people likely to host new collabs,
or to find a MAP that is still open. Search for MAP part or MAP animation on YouTube,
look up what the parts people are posting are for, and you’ll find the main project.
If you’re a Scratch animator, MAPs are popular over there too.
Hosting your own Mutli Animator Project is different from joining one. If you want your
MAP to be successful, you need to know enough people who will join to fill in all of the
spots. Not enough animators is the main reason MAPs fail.The other big challenge as a host
is that there are people who are going to drop out after they signed up. It’s a guarantee.
Be ready to find a replacement for whoever fails. A lot of hosts take backups to fill
in for people who quit.
One more tip for hosting is to frequently check in with your animators, and don’t
give them too much time. Speaking of that, special thanks to these
three for saving my butt. They took a 72 hour challenge to animate their parts, so they
animated what you see here in one weekend.
I’m so honored to have had the animators I did in this MAP. I really appreciate it.
I’m humbled because some of you are so good. Haha. I’m kind of embarrassed you’re even
listening to me talk right now.
I’ll end with a little bit of Mutli Animator Project history. Did you know that MAPs were
inspired by video editors? Video editors have been making big collaborations on the internet
for a bit longer. They combine video clips, audio, art, and text from all kinds of different
sources to make something new. AMV Hell is an example of this.